New Jersey Daily Briefing

Drug-Resistant Germ Found

By TERRY PRISTIN

Published: September 5, 1997

CAMDEN—
A staph germ that largely resists the most powerful drug used against it has shown up for the second time in the United States, at a Camden hospital, The Associated Press reported yesterday.

The strain of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria found here in August, like the first case, in Michigan, showed an intermediate level of resistance to vancomycin -- one step from immunity, said officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The male patient at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center had an infection in the bloodstream and was eventually treated successfully with other antibiotics, as was the man in Michigan.